What "man jobs" have you done today?

Diggsy said:
Yep, easy swap, although I see your latest post, so hopefully that sorts it!
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We are charging! Albeit incredibly slowly. But I suppose that doesn't matter.

Next electrical job will to be add another double socket in the hallway. The hallway is adjacent to the garage, so I can run the electrics along the garage wall and then drill through into the hallway. Do I need to cut into the plaster and brickwork to sink the back box deep enough? Or is just the plaster sufficient? Assuming it's nominal thickness plaster.
 
Macky said:
We are charging! Albeit incredibly slowly. But I suppose that doesn't matter.

Next electrical job will to be add another double socket in the hallway. The hallway is adjacent to the garage, so I can run the electrics along the garage wall and then drill through into the hallway. Do I need to cut into the plaster and brickwork to sink the back box deep enough? Or is just the plaster sufficient? Assuming it's nominal thickness plaster.
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Nice one, glad to hear it!!

As for the socket, yes you’ll likely have to knock out at least some of the masonry, as the back box for sockets is usually 35mm, and there’s no way your plaster is that deep…unless it’s fitted into battens or something, rather than the masonry just plastered over.

That said, if you’re taking the wiring from the garage straight through into the back of the socket, you might get away with the shallower 25mm box…would likely be very tight though.
 
Diggsy said:
Nice one, glad to hear it!!

As for the socket, yes you’ll likely have to knock out at least some of the masonry, as the back box for sockets is usually 35mm, and there’s no way your plaster is that deep…unless it’s fitted into battens or something, rather than the masonry just plastered over.

That said, if you’re taking the wiring from the garage straight through into the back of the socket, you might get away with the shallower 25mm box…would likely be very tight though.
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Can I do a neat job with a drill and a chisel? I've asked Santa for a corded SDS drill for Christmas as my trusty Erbauer battery combi just isn't cutting it for drilling into masonry.
 
Macky said:
Can I do a neat job with a drill and a chisel? I've asked Santa for a corded SDS drill for Christmas as my trusty Erbauer battery combi just isn't cutting it for drilling into masonry.
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Absolutely you can! I’ve done that a lot of times before. Mark out the area you need for the box, then drill several holes inside of what you marked. Chip away what’s left with your bolster (assume you meant that rather than chisel) - fairly easy job to be honest. If I were you I’d probably drill a couple of mm inside of the edge of the box if you know what I mean…that allows you to finish it off with a nice sharp edge without going outside it.

Another wee tip I picked up a long time ago is to scribe the line in the plaster at the edge of the area you’re going to be removing - go over it a few times with a sharp Stanley type blade - that tends to stop the plaster edges blowing out on you.
 
Replaced the inlet valve and float in the bog, because the old one sounded like a fog horn through the pipes every time it was flushed. I had previously tried to clean the old one up, which worked for a month or two before the fog horn sound returned again.
 
After having to design and 3d print a load of angled beam mountings for some permanent outdoor lights, I finally finished installing them on the front of the house.. I somehow ended up using just over 35M of lights (just over 7 strings, each string is 5M)..

sII3jGYl.jpg

(Halloween preset 1 shown above). ready for tonight!

These are the 'new' Govee "Outdoor Permanent lights 2", I bought 45M, ended up using more than I thought (just over 35M) since the porch has them going around it and doubling back along the wall infront of the door..

Will be lighting up the 'shed' and rear extension next..
 
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Demon said:
After having to design and 3d print a load of angled beam mountings for some permanent outdoor lights, I finally finished installing them on the front of the house.. I somehow ended up using just over 35M of lights (just over 7 strings, each string is 5M)..

sII3jGYl.jpg


These are the 'new' Govee "Outdoor Permanent lights 2", I bought 45M, ended up using more than I thought (just over 35M) since the porch has them going around it and doubling back along the wall infront of the door..

Will be lighting up the 'shed' and rear extension next..
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Looks great --- I want to do similar I am just too afraid of the ladder to top of roof lol.
 
dlockers said:
Looks great --- I want to do similar I am just too afraid of the ladder to top of roof lol.
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Perfectly sensible.. I would have loved a man-lift or scaffolding, I'm just too tight and whilst most of it was fine, the lights are close enough (3" in my case) to make working normally not feel so bad (on a nice sturdy ladder), that porch (over 3M wide) was sketchy.. I had pre-attached lights to some L-Profile which was 2.4M long, with the idea to affix either end and then lean out the window to secure in 3 places, the entire episode was "I'm never doing this again!)..

Man lift will be hired next time!
 
Demon said:
Perfectly sensible.. I would have loved a man-lift or scaffolding, I'm just too tight and whilst most of it was fine, the lights are close enough (3" in my case) to make working normally not feel so bad (on a nice sturdy ladder), that porch (over 3M wide) was sketchy.. I had pre-attached lights to some L-Profile which was 2.4M long, with the idea to affix either end and then lean out the window to secure in 3 places, the entire episode was "I'm never doing this again!)..

Man lift will be hired next time!
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Yeah I think it's the porch where the person I mentioned above slipped from. Not good.
 
Demon said:
After having to design and 3d print a load of angled beam mountings for some permanent outdoor lights, I finally finished installing them on the front of the house.. I somehow ended up using just over 35M of lights (just over 7 strings, each string is 5M)..

sII3jGYl.jpg

(Halloween preset 1 shown above). ready for tonight!

These are the 'new' Govee "Outdoor Permanent lights 2", I bought 45M, ended up using more than I thought (just over 35M) since the porch has them going around it and doubling back along the wall infront of the door..

Will be lighting up the 'shed' and rear extension next..
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Can you hook it up to the burglar alarm so if it goes off the whole house flashes like crazy? :)
 
GarethSouthgate said:
Yeah I think it's the porch where the person I mentioned above slipped from. Not good.
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:eek:

GarethSouthgate said:
Can you hook it up to the burglar alarm so if it goes off the whole house flashes like crazy? :)
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It's controllable from Home Assistant, so if your alarm was also available in Home Assistant.. :D

Once Halloween is over, Home assistant will be using my Zigbee motion sensor to fade up the porch section with just white light so that anyone walking off the road (or we are parking the car) will have it illuminate for 5 minutes.. I might get it to light up the one above the EV Charger as well since it gets pretty dark outside the house and if plugging the car in after dark, it's a bit of a challenge..
 
Those lights are awesome, my fear of heights kills doing anything like this, though I am tempted to put something under the flat roof, while I dont like heights I have climbed from rear extension onto side extension before. hmmm hah
 
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